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Biz buzz: J. Hilburn

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October 26, 2009 // UPDATED 5:03 pm - October 26, 2009

By: Amanda Kushner

Amanda Kushner

J. Hilburn brings custom shirts to the Twin Cities

Pick your fabric, buttons, cuffs and collars.

Customizing your own shirt with the help of your personal shopper is what makes J. Hilburn different from other men’s clothing companies, and Sarah Ramsay, owner of Bella Sofie, is introducing the company to the Twin Cities.

She became a national ambassador for the company in July and in four months Bella Sofie became a senior partner.

J. Hilburn takes men’s fashion and offers a custom product at half the price, she said. The owner spent seven years building the business model, and the number of products sold will grow within the year, Ramsay said.

“We are combining this luxury brand scope of Calvin Klein with an Amazon.com with the kind of corporate culture and customer service of Starbucks,” she said.

Before working with J. Hilburn, Ramsay hosted trunk shows for a women’s designer, and while in Dallas the owner of J. Hilburn met with her to discuss the company.

“I realized that women’s luxury retail was not going to be coming up anytime soon, and it just seemed like a natural progression to go to men’s,” she said.

If you are interested in J. Hilburn’s products contact Ramsay at 651-216-6798 or sarah@bellasofie.com or visit bellasofie.com.

One of the partners of Nick and Eddie, 1612 Harmon Place, is leaving and the restaurant now has a new menu.

Also Nick and Eddie recently paid off their sales tax liability. Before the liability was paid the restaurant couldn’t order from wholesalers and was only serving wine, said waiter Doug Anderson.

“Instead of closing we decided we would make some money to pay everything off,” he said.

It was paid off the week of Oct. 12, said bartender Ryan Chermack.

Partner and chef Steve Vranian left Nick and Eddie, and Derik Moran started as the new chef about two months ago, Anderson said.

“The menu for the prices on entrees is quite a lot less, and the emphasis is just making a really good neighborhood restaurant and bar,” he said.

The staff is sticking around, and for the past couple of months staff has volunteered some of their time to help Nick and Eddie, Anderson said.

“Everyone that works with us is staying on board, and just waiting for us to finish this up, so everybody did volunteer a bit to help things along,” he said.

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Noted:

Local D’Lish, 208 N. 1st St., is teaming up with Nutritional Weight & Wellness to offer a class in the store. Local D’Lish owner Ann Yin said other weight-loss groups contacted her, but it wasn’t until Nutritional Weight & Wellness that she found a group that matched her philosophies.

The six-week series begins at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 4. The class will teach participants a balanced plan for eating real foods, what a healthful diet looks like and will teach people how to balance their blood sugar for better moods, said project manager Nancy Palm. Nutritional Weight & Wellness offers classes in 27 communities, but this will be the first class Downtown, she said. On Oct. 27 Nutritional Weight & Wellness will hold Balanced Foods For Balanced Moods, a two-hour class at Local D’Lish.

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On Sept. 15, India House, 1400 Nicollet Ave, closed, according to Nyima Choegak, who now owns the space. In the middle of November, Choegak will open Great Sun Buffet & Bar at that location. Great Sun will have an Indian and Chinese buffet, he said.

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Couple Pete and Kimberly Bedell Rhodes are celebrating 25 years in communications. On Oct 8, 1984, they launched the first African American owned cable-programming service — CBLS Cable music station. In 1999 they launched BlackMusicAmerica.com, and they’ve developed Minority Business Television. Studios are located Downtown in WCCO-TV.